Bible Text: Psalm 121:1, 2 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living |

I look up to the mountains—does my help come from there? My help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth! Psalm 121:1, 2 LNT

Ulrich Inderbinen was the kind of man I would have liked for a friend. In a world of cookie-cutter conformity, Ulrich was different–uniquely different–which is why he was known and loved around the world. When he died at the age of 103, newspapers called him, “The King of the Alps,” an undisputed title given to a man who climbed the Matterhorn for the first time at age 21, with nails driven into his boots to make them grip the ice, then repeated that performance over 370 times. He was at home on his beloved Matterhorn, and his second home was the village of Zermatt down in the valley. “I am the only person in Zermatt without a telephone,” he would say proudly, adding that people knew where to find him down at the town’s church square.

He was never in a hurry, which is perhaps one of the secrets of his long life. “Stress and haste are unknown to me,” he said, adding, “I live as I climb mountains: at a pace that is slow and deliberate but also purposeful and regular.” People who climbed with him, would tell you that he never liked to stop moving before he reached his destination.

His first trip to a dentist was at age 74. He never wore glasses. His good health, he believed, was the result of his positive attitude in life. At the age of 80, he took up competitive skiing. Naturally, he always won. Nobody else was skiing competitively at his age. He said that his only regret in life was that his family vetoed his plans to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, at age 92. “I’ve no idea why they were all against it,” he sighed. As he approached the century mark, a journalist asked him if he was afraid of dying. “Not really,” he replied. “When I look at the death notices in the paper, I scarcely see anyone of my own age.” Right!

There’s something else that I like about this one-of-a-kind individualist. He used to say, “If you want to see almighty God, you must go to the mountains.” In my travels on one occasion, I got to Zermatt and took the cable car up the mountain opposite the Matterhorn, and I recall seeing a cross erected on the skyline with Zermatt behind it—something which is often seen in Catholic Switzerland.

Long ago, David, who had a kindred spirit with Ulrich Inderbinen, wrote, “I look up to the mountains— does my help come from there? My help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth! (Psalm 121:1-2 LNT). As pilgrims and sojourners walked to Jerusalem, which is considerably higher than surrounding hills, they sang the chant which David wrote. He knew His real help came from the Lord.

Those who grow up loving mountains recognize that there is an awesome, somewhat austere quality to massive mountains which dwarf those of us who would climb them, humbling us, making us know that the hand of the Almighty made our beautiful planet.

“If you want to see almighty God, you must go to the mountains,” said Ulrich Inderbinen. He would have agreed with the words of the prophet Isaiah, who wrote the comforting words of the Almighty, who promised, “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. To whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me, that we may be compared?” (Isaiah 46:4-5).

If you cannot say with Inderbinen, “Stress and haste are unknown to me,” better head for the mountains. There you, too, can find God.

Resource reading: Psalm 121